


A Friend In Need

by shadedScribe



Series: Shit, Let's Be Superheroes [2]
Category: DCU, Homestuck, Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Bro Strider's F-minus 'parenting', Bruce Wayne's C-minus parenting, Crossover, Dick Grayson is Robin, Gen, Past Child Abuse, for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25859236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadedScribe/pseuds/shadedScribe
Summary: Bro Strider is out of prison, and he's headed up to Seattle to cause a whole lot of trouble for the Beta Team. Luckily, Robin and the rest of the Teen Titans are here to lend a hand.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Dave Strider
Series: Shit, Let's Be Superheroes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876468
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	A Friend In Need

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everyone, here's another installment of the Homestuck/DC fusion. This one takes place about two or three months after New Kids On The Block. Dick's still Robin, but not for much longer. Here's a bit more backstory info about Dave and a little interteam bonding. Enjoy!

It was night in San Francisco, and Dick Grayson was lying in bed looking through his phone when he really should have been asleep. In his defense, he was still pretty used to the deranged sleep schedule that you got from being a vigilante in Gotham, even if he had been a member of the Teen Titans for quite some time now. Also in his defense, he wasn’t just catching up on his family’s shenanigans(much), he was also catching up on the news he had missed during the Titans’ busy day.

Kori, still sleeping, curled up into his side. He would worry about waking her, but she was completely exhausted from earlier; the city of Fresno had fallen victim to a malfunctioning experimental weather machine that had blanketed everything in several feet of snow and ice, and Kori had spent several hours flying around bits of critical city infrastructure putting out as much heat as she could while the rest of them went after the machine.

After checking financial news and any political disputes that were relevant to superheroing, Dick opened up the network Barbara had set up to keep track of important at-large villains and checked the listings. There were a few new listings, most of which were rather unimportant, but one of which very much was not.

>   
> Dirk “Bro” Strider. Escaped confinement at Belle Reve correctional facility about six hours ago. Current location unknown, destination unknown. Strider is considered armed and extremely dangerous, and possesses superhuman speed, strength, and agility. Engage with caution.  
> 

Dick winced. Unfortunately, ‘destination unknown’ wasn’t quite accurate. He was pretty sure that Bro would be headed for Seattle. Dick reached for his communicator to wake up the team, then thought better of it. Even if Strider took the fastest routes, he wouldn’t be there until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. Plenty of time for the Titans to beat him there in the morning. 

As he set an early alarm on his phone, Dick decided that he really needed to make sure he was rested for tomorrow, pulled Kori closer into his arms, and fell sound asleep.

\----------------

The next morning, after everyone had eaten breakfast and Dick had briefed them on Bro Strider, and shot off a text to the Beta Team to let them know they were coming, the team piled into the T-Jet and set off for Seattle. As Vic flew the jet, Dick copiloted, and the rest of them bantered and chatted, Gar seemed to think of something.

“Hey, Dick, how come you’re so sure that this Bro guy is heading for Seattle anyway?”

“Call it a hunch.” Dick answered. 

“You wouldn’t have gotten us all up early and packed us off to Seattle just for a hunch.” Karen pointed out.

“Trade secret.” said Dick, putting on a grin.

“Oh, come on.” said Roy. “More secret stuff?”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you guys.” Dick said. “But this secret isn’t mine to tell.”

That seemed to mollify Roy, who went back to good-naturedly arguing with Karen about whether or not you could make the aerodynamics of a double-pointed arrow work.

Dick sighed. The reason he was so sure that Bro was heading for Seattle was because the Beta Team, and more specifically Allegro, was there. And the reason Dick knew Bro was coming for Allegro was because he had figured out his secret identity.

Allegro’s comment when they first met about knowing Cheshire from ‘back in the day’ had been innocuous enough, but when you had been trained by Batman, you couldn’t help but look into things like that.

( _You could too help it_ , said a little voice at the back of his head, _if you could just learn to not think about things Bruce’s way for once_.)

Cheshire was Sportsmaster’s daughter; considering everyone’s ages, for Allegro to have known her ‘back in the day’ meant that he had known her when they were both kids. Allegro must have been attached to some sort of supervillain for that; no one else would have been associated with Sportsmaster long enough to get to know Cheshire. And of all the villains who had associated with Sportsmaster over the years, the one he had seemed to get along best with was Bro Strider.

Bro was an interesting customer, as Batman and the rest of the Justice League had found out when they had gone through his stuff after his arrest. On some level, he really did seem to care about humanity; his notes had frequently spoken of the need to make sure that the human race continued. But the man was obsessed with strength, and believed that anyone he considered weak didn’t deserve anything from him. He was also incredibly paranoid, especially about aliens, and was consequently suspicious of the various alien heroes on Earth, as well as disdaining superheroes in general for what he saw as making people weak and reliant on them.

Bro’s work had mainly focused on setting up various contingency plans for the event of world-shattering catastrophes and alien invasions, funded by doing various unsavory jobs on the side, including assassinations, which he had frequently worked with Sportsmaster on. The man had mostly stayed under the radar over the years, until he had assassinated several prominent writers and politicians who had been trying to bring Earth into closer relations with some of the friendlier alien planets, which had brought him to the attention of the Justice League.

After the League had taken him down, it had turned out that he had a kid; a boy he had adopted after combing through orphanages looking for superpowered children. Bro had trained (or more accurately, abused) the kid in order to try and create a successor, training him in the same kinds of tactics and skills and trying to get him to adopt the same mindset. The martial training had apparently stuck, but the other stuff? Not so much.

In any case, after some of the more unpleasant parts of the federal government had heard faint rumors about a boy with elite assassin training, superpowers, and no family except for an incarcerated supervillain, they had shown a rather unseemly interest in getting a hold of him. Bruce had responded by erasing all the evidence that the kid had ever existed (not all that hard, with how paranoid Bro had been), and arranging for him to be fostered with a trustworthy family who apparently knew the kid from the internet or something. The records in the ordinary world were gone, but Bruce’s records were much more complete. They included pictures, and even with a few years and a costume in between there was no mistaking that Allegro was Dave Strider.

Which was a bit of a problem, because records from prison showed that Bro hadn’t taken the loss of his kid/apprentice very well, and odds were that the first thing he would try to do after leaving prison would be to go and try to get him back.

Dick’s thoughts were interrupted when his communicator buzzed out a tinny up-tempo rendition of Chopin’s Funeral March. He sighed; someone had changed the ringtone that he used for calls from Batman again. Probably Gar, if the snickering from the backseat was anything to go by.

“I should take this.” said Dick, getting up and slipping back into the cargo hold.

Once he was away from the others, he pulled out the communicator, and popped it open.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“There’s a situation.” said Bruce. “A dangerous assassin called Bro Strider has escaped custody, and I believe he’s most likely headed for the Seattle area. I need you and your team to intercept him before he gets there. It’s urgent.”

Dick pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know, I saw the notification on Barbara’s network yesterday. We’re already en route.”

“Oh.” Bruce sounded a bit taken aback. “Well, there’s another layer here. I believe that Strider might be going after the costumed vigilante known as Allegro-”

“Because Allegro is actually Dave Strider, yes, I know.” Dick cut him off. “Also, you know that the Teen Titans are an independent group, right?”

“You know about the Striders’ situation?” Bruce asked.

“Yeah, I figured it out after we first worked with the Beta Team. It wasn’t that hard.”

“You didn’t inform me that you had worked with the Beta Team, or share any intelligence about them.” said Bruce. His tone wasn’t disapproving, exactly; it was more like a math teacher who was trying to figure out why a student had used the wrong equation. But it still rankled a bit.

“I didn’t realize that was a problem.” said Dick. “They’re fellow heroes, not villains. Besides, I figured you probably knew already, and apparently I was right.”

“While it’s true that they’re allies, it’s still important to stay informed, just in case.” said Bruce.

“I’m not going to help you gather intel on our colleagues unless I think there’s a problem, okay. We’ve been over this.” 

“That we have.” Bruce said impassively. “I still think you should reconsider some of that. There are some people on your team who have the potential to be serious threats if something goes wrong.”

“Oh, we are not having this argument again.” Dick snapped. “Do you really just not trust my judgement at all?”

“I do trust your judgement, Dick, but-”

“Then maybe act like it for once! I’m not spying on my friends for you.”

“It’s not about spying.” said Bruce. “It’s about making sure that we have contingencies in place if something goes wrong. It’s the responsible thing to do.”

“Making plans about how to take down my own teammates is responsible?” Dick asked incredulously.

“We can’t let our personal feelings get in the way of being prepared.”

“Well, you’re just going to have to put together your contingencies yourself.” said Dick. “Don’t worry, the Teen Titans will make sure Bro gets put back where he belongs.”

He hung up the call and sighed, leaning against the wall of the cargo hold. Bruce meant well, he knew, but the man was just so paranoid. It made it rather difficult for people to trust him, which tended to feed into the problem.

Dick shook his head. He could worry about it later. For the moment, he had a job to do. He carefully schooled his expression to erase any trace of irritation or upset, then walked back up to the passenger cabin.

“Sorry to ditch the copilot’s seat there.” he said cheerfully as he sat back down. “Just had to catch up with Batman real quick.”

There was a pause as Donna studied him for a moment.

“That bad, huh?” she said wryly.

The rest of the team all looked at him, concerned. Dick chuckled ruefully.

“I guess I can’t get anything past you guys. It was just an argument. Nothing we haven’t said before.”

“The fact that you have repeated the argument suggests that it is difficult to resolve.” Kori pointed out.

“We just don’t see eye to eye about certain things.” said Dick. “It’s fine.”

“If you say so.” said Karen.

“Yeah, don’t listen to Batman.” Gar chimed in. “I think you’re pretty cool.”

“Thanks, Gar. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Uh, guys.” said Vic. “We’re coming up on Seattle now, and there’s a bit of a problem.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Dick.

“Well, for starters, I’m pretty sure the Space Needle isn’t supposed to be on fire.”

Everyone scrambled to get a good look out the windows. Sure enough, the observation deck on the Space Needle was on fire in several places.

“Vic, are the water cannons on this thing still working?” Dick asked.

“Yeah, I’m priming them now.”

But before Vic could use them, there was a rush of air as Windstorm flew past and put out the fires. He waved at the T-Jet as he passed, then pointed to a nearby roof where they could land. Once they were on the ground, Windstorm touched down nearby as they piled out of the jet.

“Boy, am I glad to see you guys.” he said. “If you hadn’t called earlier to say you were coming I would have probably called you anyway. There’s a whole lot of supervillains in town right now.”

“Who’s here?” Dick asked.

“A whole bunch of people, but the ones we’re having trouble with right now are these guys calling themselves the Masters of Disaster.” Windstorm waved a hand towards the street, where the rest of the Beta Team was cautiously waiting near a group of five colorfully costumed supervillains. “We can’t go after them properly because we’re in the middle of the city and they’ve got a guy who does earthquakes, so it’s been pretty frustrating.”

“We can stop earthquakes.” said Vic, grinning and readying his sonic cannon. “Right, Raven?”

“Right.”

They got back down to street level and approached the supervillains, who briefly quailed at seeing the Titans coming towards them until their leader, a pale woman with a blue mohawk (New Wave was her name, Dick recalled), rallied.

“One step closer, Titans, and Shakedown takes out every building in sight, you hear?” she snapped, gesturing at the bulky man in a green costume next to her.

Raven raised her hands and let her magic spread over the ground around the group like a pool of ink.

“That’s it!” snapped New Wave. “Shakedown!”

The man nodded and attacked with vibrations that spread through the ground; or at least started to, until Vic fired his sonic cannon, Raven’s magic letting the two competing vibrations channel directly through the ground and counter each other perfectly.

“Retreat!” yelled New Wave, turning into a stream of water and absconding into a nearby sewer. Her compatriots tried to follow, but Allegro was in among them in a flash, knocking out the pyrokinetic and tripping up the cryokinetic. Roy got Shakedown with a boxing glove arrow, and the only the last member escaped, flying up on a gust of wind while narrowly avoiding Windstorm’s own attacks.

“Hey, that’s a neat trick.” said Techwitch, smiling at them. “Glad to see you guys!”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Allegro agreed. “It’s supervillain central up here today.”

“And it’s only going to get worse.” said Dick. 

“How so?” Seer asked. “We’ve managed to figure out that some anonymous figure has been paying these villains to come to the city. Do you have some more information?”

“Something like that.” said Dick. “We’ve got reason to believe that an extremely dangerous supervillain who goes by Bro Strider is on his way here.”

Everyone on the Beta Team started at that, though you probably needed to be trained by Batman to notice Allegro’s reaction(or rather, Dave’s reaction, Dick supposed).

“Bro Strider?” Windstorm asked. “Are you sure? He should still be locked up, right?”

“He escaped last night.” said Dick. “There was some intel that suggested he might be coming here.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Alleg- Dave, Dick was just going to call him Dave in his head now- sighed. “He’s got, well, let’s just say he’s got kind of a grudge against me.”

“From back in the day?” Donna asked.

“Yeah.” said Dave. “It was a pretty eventful day.”

“Well, if Bro thinks he can just come in here and grab you he’s got another think coming!” said Techwitch, eyes blazing with fury.

“Yeah!” Windstorm agreed. “We’ll stick together so that he can’t get a hold of you.”

Seer winced. “That might be a problem. There are a lot of enemies on hand right now, scattered all over the city. Regular criminals too, not just supervillains. Even with the Titans here we’ll have to split up at least somewhat in order to face them all.”

“How the heck are there that many villains in town all of the sudden?” asked Gar. “It’s not like Seattle is usually crime central or anything.”

“Bro must have paid them all off to come and be a distraction.” said Dave, shaking his head. 

“You’d think the League would have traced his assets when they took him down.” Roy pointed out.

“Nah, he didn’t trust banks, so he would just bury boxes of gold at random coordinates he memorized.”

“A weeaboo semi-unabomber assassin with superpowers and a giant pile of gold. Great.” Raven pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is going to be a long day.”

“Well, then we may as well get started.” said Dick. “We should split into pairs and keep in close contact. If anyone sees Bro, be sure and let everyone else know right away.”

“I’ve listened in on the police scanners and made a map of every incident that needs our attention.” said Vic, projecting said map as a hologram from his arm.

“Right, thanks. Everyone pick a partner and pick a spot.” said Dick.

A few minutes later, they were all rushing into action. Dick and Kori were headed off to stop an Intergang splinter group that was holding a hospital hostage; Dick had made sure to keep an eye on where Dave had wound up going, too. Whatever happened, he’d be ready. And with that in mind, he set out to do his job.

\----------------

A few hours later, Dick was crawling through a ventilation duct in the hospital, being extra careful not to make the slightest sound. He and Kori had almost finished clearing out the gangsters, but the last two were being difficult. Dick could hear one of them yelling as he made his way up closer.

“Not one step closer, alien, or I’ll blow her head off!”

Dick peered through a vent at the scene; the last two gangsters, standing together with shotguns trained on a terrified nurse. Kori was hovering warily at the other end of the hallway. Neither of the goons could do anything against her, but if she tried to fire a starbolt they would have plenty of time to kill their hostage before being taken out.

Fortunately, Kori wasn’t alone. Dick slipped noiselessly out of the vent and crept up behind the gangsters, then grabbed their heads and banged them together like a pair of coconuts. The pair dropped unconscious, and Dick casually caught the shotguns before they could hit the ground.

“Nicely done.” said Kori.

“Thanks. That was the last of them.”

The nurse had picked herself up and was apparently debating whether or not to get in a few kicks on her captors while they were down. She eventually decided against it, then took a look at her rescuers.

“Robin!” she started, before looking puzzled. “Aren’t you a long ways from Gotham?”

“I work with the Teen Titans now.” Dick was getting tired of explaining that.

“Oh. Well, thanks for the save.”

“Anytime, ma’am.” Dick grinned as he stooped down to cuff the gangsters. “Just doing our jobs.”

“It’s just weird to not have Batman and Robin together.” the nurse mused (it would have been under her breath if Dick wasn’t so well trained) as she walked away to catch up with her colleagues.

Dick sighed. He liked the Robin costume fine, but wearing it made it kind of hard to get out from under Bruce’s shadow. Things to think about later, he supposed. There was still work to do.

He and Kori left the building and scanned the streets for trouble. A quick listen on the police scanner and the local news suggested that many of the villains plaguing the city had been dealt with. But there was still a lot that needed to be done, so they set off towards a spot on the north side of town where some guy called Javelin was apparently causing trouble.

Dick’s communicator beeped, and Donna’s voice came over the line.

“Everyone, I just caught a glimpse of Bro Strider, heading northwest towards where Allegro and Seer went to deal with the sewer monster. Roy and I are-” There was a loud crash and an explosion. ”-too busy to go after him.”

“Copy that.” said Dick. “Allegro, Seer, come in.” 

There was nothing on the line but static. Shit.

Kori picked him up and made a beeline for the northwest. At least they could get there quickly, and Dick doubted that Bro would be able to handle Kori in a fight. As long as nothing went wrong…

“Mayday! Mayday!” came a call over the civilian channels. “This is United Airlines 385, we’ve been hit by some sort of energy blast and we’re going down! Mayday!”

Why had none of the city authorities thought to redirect airplane traffic? Dick scanned the skies; sure enough, there was the plane, with a charred hole that went clean through the wing and extended back to the fuselage. Donna was busy, and Windstorm appeared to be stuck holding up a bridge, which meant the only one with a chance to save the airliner was-

“Go!” Dick said to Kori. “I’ll handle Bro.”

Kori nodded, set him down on a roof, and soared off towards the stricken plane. Dick kept running across the rooftops, until he found the alley where the faceoff was happening.

It was not an encouraging scene to be looking down on. Seer was unconscious amidst a pile of scorched and blasted tentacles from the monster they had been fighting; Bro must have slipped in while she was distracted. A simple portable radio jammer was set up on a tripod just outside the alley’s mouth; that explained why Donna’s warning hadn’t helped. Bro was standing over Seer with a drawn sword; Dave was on the other side of the alley, trying very hard not to look nervous.

“You’ve gone and gotten soft on me, little bro.” The elder Strider’s expression didn’t betray the slightest hint of emotion; somehow that made it worse. “Wasting time with costumes and beating up muggers.”

“Hey, come on, man, we don’t have to do this.” said Dave.

“Yes, we do.”

“You know that the Justice League is gonna come down on you like a-”

Bro shook his head. “See what I mean. This super-team nonsense makes you weak. Reliant.” He glanced over at Seer. “Maybe an object lesson would help you realize that you can’t expect anyone else to save you.”

Now was probably a good time to make an entrance. Dick whipped out a grappling gun and shot the line at Bro’s head; the man dodged, as expected, but that gave Dick a second to spring into the alley and whip a couple of batarangs at him. Bro sprang back to avoid them, giving Dave an opening to dart in and pull Seer to safety on the other side of the alley.

Dick landed and pulled out his batons as Bro turned to look at him.

“Robin.” Bro said coldly. “This isn’t any of your business. Leave.”

“I’m pretty sure escaped murderers are my business.” said Dick. Dave was cautiously advancing on Bro, sword at the ready.

Bro glanced between the two of them, shrugged, and lunged.

Dick was very glad he had decided to start learning eskrima, because he would have been in trouble trying to fight Bro without a weapon. The man’s powers were no joke; blocking an overhead strike from the sword drove Dick down to one knee, and his eyes could barely follow the path of the blade. But Dick had fought Deathstroke before, so he wasn’t about to give up just because of a few enhanced abilities.

Dick and Dave circled around Bro, coming at him from opposite sides in the hopes of slipping something past his defenses. But it was no good; the man was too fast. Every strike of Dave’s sword and Dick’s batons was parried, and Bro even managed to slip in a shallow cut across Dick’s ribs. Dick stepped back to throw a bolas at Bro’s ankles as Dave came in with a leaping slash; Bro sidestepped Dave’s strike, caught the bolas in a loop around his sword, and used them like an improvised flail to crack Dave across the temple.

As Dave staggered, Bro took an invisibly fast step and disappeared. Dick reacted on pure instinct, throwing up his batons behind him just in time to catch a strike at his head as Bro appeared at his back. Unfortunately, the awkward block meant that Dick couldn’t quite twist away from Bro’s follow-up kick, which launched him heavily into a wall.

As Dick picked himself up and tried to clear his head, Bro was herding Dave towards a wall in a flurry of strikes.

“Too slow.” Bro said coldly as a slash left a cut on Dave’s left thigh.

“Too slow.” he said again, as he twitched his head out of the way of Dave’s stab and cracked him under the chin with his sword hilt.

Dave fell back and bumped into the wall, but recovered, and lashed out at Bro. Bro’s parry pinned his blade to the wall, and Bro took advantage of the opening to grab Dave by the collar and hurl him up onto a fire escape, where he proceeded to tumble inelegantly down the stairs face first.

Or at least that was what it looked like; but as Bro darted to the base of the stairs to intercept him, Dave suddenly turned his tumble into a springing dive off of a step, streaking in at Bro and actually managing to leave a cut on the man’s cheek. But sadly, that was all he had managed, and Dave’s off balance landing let Bro land a slash across his back -not deep enough to maim or kill, Dick could tell, but it must have hurt- and crack him over the head with his sword hilt.

Dick had recovered enough that he felt capable of throwing something without hitting Dave by accident, and so he threw a flashbang batarang, intentionally holding back on the throw in the hopes that Bro would be arrogant enough to try and catch it and have it go off in his face. Bro did indeed catch it, but recognized what it was just in time to fling up in the air, where it went off harmlessly.

At least it got Bro’s attention on Dick instead of Dave. The villain was across the alley in a flash, sword flickering towards Dick’s throat; Dick barely managed to parry. He kicked Bro in the shin, but if the man even felt it, he didn’t show it. Bro kept up a swarm of strikes, while Dick struggled desperately to deflect them. When he managed to parry a blow using only one baton, Dick tried to strike at Bro’s sword arm with the other, but Bro was too fast.

Dave picked himself up and rushed at Bro, sword arcing towards the back of a knee. In a single fluid, impossibly fast motion, Bro whirled around and parried Dave’s strike, slipped his free hand past Dick’s guard to punch him in the chest and knock him back, and kicked Dave in the gut hard enough to fling him back against the far wall again.

Dick sprang away to gain a little distance, wincing as he did- that punch had cracked a rib, apparently. Bro kicked a dumpster at him, sending it skidding down the alley like an oncoming car. Fortunately, that trick was a familiar old Bane staple; Dick easily flipped up, did a handspring off the lid, and came diving down at Bro, batons at the ready. Bro made as if he was going to stand his ground, then suddenly sidestepped; but Dick had seen it coming, and lashed out at Bro’s face with a baton. Bro easily blocked, but it at least let Dick make a clean landing.

Dave was still down; Dick and Bro circled each other warily. On the bright side, Dick had caught his breath enough to deploy one of his best weapons: banter.

“For someone who’s so into self-reliance, you sure hired a lot of supervillains for today, huh?” said Dick.

It was hard to tell with the shades, but Dick was pretty sure that Bro was glaring at him.

“Batman couldn’t stop me without the Justice League’s help, and you’re just a weaker version of him.” Bro said coldly.

“Cutting right to the chase, huh.” Dick half-muttered before speaking up. “I’ve fought Deathstroke. I can handle you.”

“No, you can’t.”

Bro rushed in, sword flickering as fast as ever.

“You cape and cowl types are all the same.” he said. “You’re too weak to do what needs doing, too weak to stand on your own, too weak to make the hard choices, too weak to stand up to the aliens.”

“Have you actually met our aliens?” Dick managed to get out in between parries. “Because they’re all a lot more likeable than you, that’s for sure.”

“You’re nothing without a team.”

“And just what are you?” Dick shot back. “Some loser who can’t go up against anyone without hired help? Lots of people get beat by the Justice League, but you’re the only one who whines about how it’s not fair that they teamed up.”

Bro was angry now, Dick could tell. Unfortunately, it was a cold anger; his strikes were harder and more constant, but not any sloppier.

“You’re pathetic.” said Bro. “You swan around trying to ‘help’, but all you’ve done is make people dependent on you. Has Gotham actually improved at all, in the entire time you’ve been there? No.”

Bro came in with a massive overhead strike that forced Dick to block with both batons and nearly bore him down on his knees.

“One of these days, you and the rest of the ‘heroes’ will run into something hard that you don’t have the will to do what is necessary to overcome, and then you’ll fall.” Bro continued. “But don’t worry. I’ll be there to teach the ones who are still worth something what true strength is.”

“Do you talk about your shitty survival-of-the-fittest stuff with everyone you fight, or am I special?” Dick quipped. Bro snarled and bore down harder. 

“Seriously,” Dick continued, “do you think that torturing children and calling it training makes you a badass? Because it doesn’t. Did you not have any friends in high school and decide to develop a whole ideology around it to make you feel better?”

There was movement in the corner as Dave started to pull himself to his feet again. Bro’s eyes flickered over for just a second, and Dick took the opportunity to disengage and backflip away; he’d gotten an idea.

Bro came rushing after Dick, sword at the ready for a strike. Dick threw a baton at his head; he dodged with a twitch of his neck rather than mess up his strike to block it, and the baton flew past-

-then bounced perfectly off of a pole behind him and hit him squarely in the back of the head. Bro staggered, and Dick took advantage of the opening to smash him in the face with his remaining baton, shattering his glasses and breaking his nose.

Bro snarled as he fell back, then steadied himself and kicked Dick in the chest, hard enough to crack a few more ribs. As Dick was knocked back, Bro’s sword came chopping down at his head, maybe too fast to avoid.

Dave sprang back into the fray, shoving Dick aside with a gentle kick to the hip and bringing a strong two-handed strike with his sword down on the back of Bro’s blade, sending it clattering to the ground. Dick got a foot on the dropped sword and kicked it back out of the alley before Bro could try to grab it again, and Dave only barely missed a cut at Bro’s eyes, forcing the villain to leap back to gain some distance.

They all paused to assess the situation. Dick and Dave were both fairly beaten up, but Dick had fought through worse, and he was pretty sure Dave had too. Bro was disarmed, while Dick and Dave both still had a weapon.

“Care to give up?” Dick asked.

“Hardly.” said Bro. “Do you think I can’t kill you with my bare hands?”

“Come on, bro.” said Dave, struggling to keep the emotion out of his voice(and mostly succeeding, to be fair). “Just admit you’ve lost already.”

“I haven’t lost as long as I’m alive.” said Bro. “And you two don’t have the strength to kill me. You’re too reliant on others, too weak; you don’t understand what has to be done.”

“It’s like talking to a cartoon villain sometimes, huh?” Dick said to Dave.

“Yeah.” Dave said sardonically. “Pity the slapstick is never very funny.” 

“If you can’t understand why having friends is good then there’s nothing I can do for you.” said Dick, looking Bro square in the eyes. “Just know that it’s got a lot of benefits.”

Above them, there was a rush of wind, a shimmery sort of sound, and a familiar green glow.

Dick smiled, “Case in point.”

“I would advise you to surrender.” said Kori, hovering above them and aiming a starbolt at Bro.

Bro suddenly looked just the tiniest bit uncertain.

There was more movement behind Bro; Seer had woken up and taken in the situation, and was scrambling for one of her wands, lethal fury burning in her eyes.

Bro dashed to the side and leapt onto a roof millimeters ahead of a blast from Seer that slagged the brickwork and set his shirt on fire. He started to run, narrowly avoiding a cable that Dick shot at him and ducking another blast from Seer.

And then Kori dove in and punched him hard enough to knock him all the way through the building to leave a crater in the ground.

“Well, that’s that.” said Dick. “Let’s go find a medic.”

\----------------------

Half an hour later, Dick was standing around on a street corner, watching things getting wrapped up. The various captured supervillains were getting hauled off, Windstorm was giving a statement to the press, and most of the others were either fixing up their injuries or helping haul away supervillains. Dave was sitting on the curb, not really looking at anything. Dick came up and sat down next to him.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I have got the mother of all headaches.” said Dave. “Like, the ancient mother from which all other headaches descend kind of headache. But I’ll be fine. Honestly, a lot of training sessions with Bro turned out worse than this.”

“That’s good.” said Dick. “Though I wasn’t just asking about your physical injuries.”

Dave half-smiled. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got friends and all, remember.”

They sat in silence for a moment before Dave spoke again.

“That stuff you said to him back there. About torturing a child and shit. How did you know about that?”

“Uh… well…” Dick struggled to come up with an explanation.

Dave sighed. “Batman told you my identity, didn’t he.”

“I actually figured it out myself.” said Dick. “Using Batman’s records. Sorry.”

“It’s cool.” said Dave. “It’s not that big a deal. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s a good thing that you did, or I would have been in serious trouble tonight.”

“Still, I shouldn’t have pried. Old habits from Batman, I guess.”

“Hm.” Dave pondered for a second. “What was it like training with him?”

“In what regard?” Dick asked.

“Like, Bro used to say that I shouldn’t complain because- well, he gave a lot of reasons. Most of them involved kicking my ass. But sometimes he would say that it was just standard sidekick training.”

“No.” said Dick. “My training was rough sometimes, but never like that.”

“I kinda figured.” Dave sighed. “But it’s nice to know. You never wanted to just get away from him?”

“Not while I was younger. And never for quite the same reasons as you, I imagine.”

Bruce could be overbearing and paranoid, and he had the emotional sensitivity of a particularly unpleasant rock sometimes, but the man would throw himself in a volcano before letting himself turn out like Bro Strider, Dick could give him that.

“I used to think that it must have been nice to be Robin.” Dave mused. “Helping people for real and getting to make friends instead of sitting around shitty apartments with a bunch of supervillains.”

“It had its moments.” Dick agreed.

“Why’d you leave?” Dave asked. “Sorry, is that too personal?”

“It’s fine.” Dick sighed. “I guess Batman and I just have some different ideas about how to do things.”

“Makes sense. Did he not mind you taking the costume?”

“We never discussed it.” It was more Dick’s than Bruce’s anyway. Not that it stopped people from associating it with Batman. He wondered what Jason would do for a costume once Bruce let him start going out on patrol.

“Bro never let me wear a costume.” said Dave. “Said it was frivolous and shit.”

Dick glanced at Dave’s red cape and outfit. “I take it you disagreed.”

“Hell yeah. I made this first thing after I got away.” Dave grinned. “Sometimes it’s nice to just make a clean break, you know.”

Dick would have to think about that.

Windstorm had finished talking to the press, and he and most of their fellow heroes were gathering a little ways away. Dick and Dave got up and walked over to join them.

Dave’s friends had already pulled him aside to make sure he was okay earlier, but they still looked over him with concern as he made his way over.

“It looks like everything is settled.” Windstorm was saying. “We can’t thank you guys enough for helping out.”

“It’s not a problem.” said Dick. “I’m just glad you didn’t have to deal with this whole mess on your own.”

There was a chorus of agreement from the gathered heroes at that.

Dave seemed to catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye and tensed up almost imperceptibly. Dick turned to look at what he had seen.

It was Bro, being dragged to a transport van by Kori and Donna. His glasses were still gone, and he had some spectacular bruises on his face from where Dick and Kori had hit him earlier, which dented his air of aloofness a bit at least.

“This isn’t over, little bro.” he said as he passed. “I’ll get out again, and when I-”

One of Roy’s arrows streaked in and covered Bro in sticky green goo from mouth to toes.

“No one wants to hear it, pal.” Roy said.

Everyone’s spirits seemed a little lifted by that, and as the van drove off to carry Bro back to prison, there were plenty of smiles to go around.

“Sheesh, that guy’s a jerk.” said Karen. “Kind of makes me wish I’d got the chance to zap him a couple of times.”

“Yeah, and all that ‘little bro’ stuff.” said Roy. “What’s with that?”

“I mean, we are sort of related.” said Dave. “Technically. Actually, Batman might have nuked the paperwork so maybe we aren’t anymore, who knows?”

“Wait, you’re actually brothers?” Gar asked.

Dave turned to look at Dick. “You figured out my secret identity and then didn’t tell your team?”

Dick shrugged. “It wasn’t really my business in the first place, so no.”

“Wait, he figured out your identity?” Windstorm asked.

“Yeah, cause he’s got spooky Batman training.” said Dave. “But it’s cool. Honestly, I don’t have much reason to hide it. Dave Strider, pleased to meet you.”

Windstorm shrugged. “Ah, what the heck, I think we can trust you guys. You can call me John.”

After that, things just dissolved into a general meet-and-greet, until everyone had spoken except Dick.

“Robin probably isn’t going to say anything.” said Roy.

“His identity has some extra layers to it.” Donna explained.

“By which she means Batman gets all pissy when he tells people.” Roy added. “Seriously, he only told us because like half of us knew alrea-”

“Dick. You can call me Dick. I think I can trust you guys.”

“Oh. Huh.” Roy smiled. “Guess I was wrong.”

“Please feel free to get any jokes about the name out of the way right now.” Dick said, bracing.

“Nah,” said Dave, “that’s low-hanging fruit. It’s beneath a real funny guy.”

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with you?” John snarked.

Dave gasped in mock horror and put a hand to his chest; he sold the gesture well enough that most of them laughed.

“I don’t know about you guys, but beating all those bad guys is making me hungry.” said Gar. “And it’s not even sunset yet. What do you say we grab some pizza?”

“Is that a Titans tradition?” Rose asked.

“Sacred and eternal.” Raven confirmed.

“Well, I know a good place.” said Jade. “Let’s go!”

It wasn’t until late at night that the Titans made it back to San Francisco. But it had been a good day, all things considered, and that made it all the more satisfying to sleep like a log all night.

\-----------------

The next morning, Dick thought about some things while he ran through his morning exercises; identity and independence and making a clean break. Then, after breakfast, he caught up with Donna.

“Do you mind helping me out with something?”

“Not at all.” Donna said. “What do you need?”

“I was looking to design an outfit.”

He wasn’t sure what the name would be yet- maybe he would ask Clark for ideas or something. But the idea was clear in his head. Jason would make a good Robin; Dick had other things in his future.

**Author's Note:**

> I've already got the next one plotted out and hope to have it finished in a month or two. (No promises though.) Up next: Terezi, more Vriska, and more about this universe's version of Alternia.
> 
> I don't think Bruce is like an irredeemable monster of a father or anything, but the guy's got issues, in case you didn't notice from all the dressing like a bat and jumping off roofs. He's trying, and he'll get better at it with time.
> 
> Thanks for reading.


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